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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28307634">would've loved you for a lifetime</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rories/pseuds/rories'>rories</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Blacklist (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Pre-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:14:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28307634</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rories/pseuds/rories</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>there'll be happiness after you / but there was happiness because of you / both of these things can be true / there is happiness</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Raymond Reddington falls in love.</p><p>Raymond Reddington falls out of love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Raymond Reddington/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>would've loved you for a lifetime</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>written for the blacklist secret santa. this is not a story with a happy ending, but it is a story with a happy beginning and a happy middle and a happy future.  i'm not sure my recipient has ao3, but i hope you enjoy it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He sees her from across the room, all pale skin under a dress the color of the night sky.  Her hair is done up in a complicated bun and her lips are cherry red.  She’s got a crowd of people around her, entranced by a story she’s telling, hanging on her every word.  She is radiant and jubilant and he knows she’s going to break his heart. </p><p>Raymond Reddington is used to attractive women.  He’s used them to his advantage time and time again. So he knows the ways to flatter women to get what he wants. </p><p>And right now he wants her. </p><p>He is a poor, lost sailor and she is the lighthouse guiding him home.  </p><p>He makes a pass around the room, glass of champagne delicately perched in his fingers, and he keeps his gaze on her as he circles. She never once looks away from the group in front of her so he takes his fill. </p><p>He can’t tell if she’s here with someone or if she’s come on her own; there’s no man hanging off of her and she hasn’t made a move to acknowledge a date of any kind. </p><p>His pass around the room becomes a spiral that she’s at the center of until finally he’s joined the crowd around her. He recognizes a few faces, people he’s done dealings with before. He may not have been in the game for as long as the others, but he’s worked his way up in the underworld. </p><p>And in the middle of them all, there she is. </p><p>She’s even more beautiful up close. Her freckled skin is smooth and there are a few loose tendrils of hair tickling her neck. Up this close he sees that her eyes are a light hazel color and right now they are shining with amusement at the story she’s being told. </p><p>She glances up at him for a moment and he feels his lungs contract for just a second. He’d thought earlier that she would break his heart. Now he knows he’d let her. </p><p>*****</p><p>He learns her name between kisses pressed against that tantalizing neck as her fingers get caught in the knot of his bowtie. He gives her the name Raymond and ponders for a very brief moment if that was a good idea and then her hand slides down the plane of his chest. </p><p>It doesn’t take long before their clothes are in pools on the hotel room floor and he’s pleased as punch to know without a doubt that the freckles he’d spotted on her shoulders do indeed spread downward onto her chest.  </p><p>They don’t get much sleep, if any, too busy learning the peaks and valleys of each other’s bodies.  Raymond’s been with plenty of women before, but being with her has opened his soul in a way he hadn’t expected.  </p><p>The night is filled with soft sighs and breathless moans and in the morning, he asks if she’d like to do it all over again. </p><p>She tells him yes, her skin flushing a pretty pale pink that Raymond wants to be responsible for over and over again. </p><p>That night, they attend another party, hosted by another contact of his that he doesn’t even bother talking to. Instead he watches <i>her</i> as she becomes the flame to which all the moths are drawn. </p><p>Her dress is a jeweled purple tone tonight, off one shoulder and she’s pulled her hair to one side. Raymond knows that if anyone were to inspect her exposed neck closely, they’d see the make up she’d used to cover up the bruising there. </p><p>The night ends the same way as before and Raymond relishes in the feel of silk sheets on the scratches across his back, even as she digs matching ones across his front. </p><p>*****</p><p>They continue in this way for months. She is no stranger to the type of business he’s in, so it makes it easier to continue their dalliance. She continues to be the light in his underworld, even as his dealings pull him further and further under. </p><p>And they work together surprisingly well, playing off each other’s strengths as they make deals and gather favors like poker chips. </p><p>Raymond doesn’t dare think about the future, despite how easily he can see them, how well she’s fit into the empty spaces in his life. But he’s been burned before and it’s easier to want than to actually have. </p><p>They spend most of their time together and Raymond spoils her rotten, always with the explanation of wanting to see her smile. </p><p>So he buys her gifts and takes her on trips and she laughs and smiles and repays him with long, slow kisses and criminal contacts. </p><p>It’s a perfect arrangement and he’s never been happier. </p><p>But all good things must come to an end. </p><p>*****</p><p>Raymond sees the changes in her after a year. It’s a small, subtle shift in attitude, in the two of them, but it sets him on edge all the same. </p><p>She still smiles and laughs, her skin still blushes prettily when he compliments her. She’s still gracious when he gifts her jewelry and clothes and let’s her take point on missions. But he can see her grow restless, can feel her start to pull away from him. </p><p>He’s not the type to grasp desperately to things that would rather be let go, but he does try. She mentions a deal in Beirut and they’re on a plane within the hour. She speaks offhandedly about a new restaurant and he talks his way into a reservation for the next evening. </p><p>He’s attentive to every need, every possible thing she could want. </p><p>And still it’s no surprise when she tells him she’s leaving. </p><p>Raymond doesn’t beg. He doesn’t cry or make promises or bargain. He simply...let’s her leave. Presses a sweet kiss to her lips and helps her carry her bags to the car and has Dembe take her to the airport. </p><p>He’s known she would break his heart since the beginning and it feels like his heart is glass. </p><p>It’s more effort than he’d care to admit to keep it from shattering. </p><p>*****</p><p>Years later he sees her at a gala while hunting a Blacklister. Her hair is shorter and there are a few more wrinkles around her eyes, but she is still as heart-stoppingly beautiful as she was when they first met. </p><p>Raymond doesn’t point her out to the team, but they catch each other’s eye from across the room and she smiles so prettily at him.</p><p>He’s no longer mad, really never had been, that she left him. There’s a bittersweetness when he looks at her, but there’s also happiness, a quiet contentment that comes with good memories. </p><p>He doesn’t go to her, just smiles again and preens slightly when her cheeks flush, still the same after all these years. </p><p>It makes him happy.</p>
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